John Romaniello's Rules: Part 2

Our Fitness Expert's Life Commandments: Part 2

This three-part article is the culmination of some 16 years of work, if you can believe it. Here's Part 2. If you missed Part 1, go check it out. Stay tuned for Part 3 in the coming days.

When I was 14, I was given an assignment in school to write down my own 10 Commandments — rules about things I thought were important to me personally, and that I would abide by. I wrote them down and handed them in, but also added them to my journal. A few of the rules from this original list have stayed with me.

Just about a decade later, I added a few new rules to it, as part of a joke email chain that was being passed around among my friends. Most of the rules pertaining to sex or fashion came about then, as did a few fitness rules.

Finally, I made some additions over the past month or so. I had forgotten about the list, not having looked at it since I was about 24, but a book reminded me of it.

Recently, I read The Guinea Pig Diaries by A.J. Jacobs, which is essentially a collection of articles chronicling Jacobs’ various lifestyle experiments. These include everything from living a month as a beautiful woman (by controlling his babysitter’s online dating profile) to experimenting with radical honesty. All of the experiments are interesting, but the one about George Washington is most germane to our conversation, and is, in fact, the inspiration for this post.

Chapter seven of The Guinea Pig Diaries is called “What Would George Washington Do?” The premise of the experiment was to behave like GW for a month, in every way possible.

You might be wondering: How does one behave like Washington? Or, more specifically, how does one know how Washington might behave? Very good questions, with a single specific answer: You just follow the list.

Washington, you see, had a list of 110 rules that governed his behavior, called "Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation.” Washington was not the original author of the rules; they were penned by French Jesuits sometime around 1595. But he did take the time to painstakingly copy the entire list by hand. (If you’re interested, you can read the entire list here.)

Jacobs’ experiment, then, was to follow these rules as closely as possible, and, in essence, do what Washington would do, and react as Washington would react.

Upon reading all of these, I decided to pull out my own commandments, add to it and see where it went. I have been exceptionally pleased with the results.

Now let's get back to where we left off.

22.Buy the jeans that make your ass look the nicest. This is the only rule that applies to jeans. End of story. I don’t care if you hate Diesel. If Diesel makes your ass look amazing, you should wear Diesel. Period. Thankfully, it’s not always the expensive ones; Levi’s fit me like a (very tight) glove.

23.If a girl cheats on you, f*ck her sister. Or her best friend. Or her worst enemy. Or all three. Ladies, the same applies to you. (Roman’s Note: Yeah, I’ve done this, and, no, I don't really care how terrible or shallow it makes me seem, as I certainly think it evened things right up.)

24.The high five is somewhat outdated. However, we'll have to continue to use it until a suitable replacement is found.